Laminates are generally made from thin laminae of the same or similar material stacked together with adhesive between the laminae. They are then pressed and heated until cured into a one-piece, sheet-like laminate.
Disc brake pads are generally made by adhering friction material to a steel backing plate. This is done using a “batch” process where a measure of powered friction material is poured directly onto each backing plate in moulds specific for each model and year of vehicle. The moulds are then stacked and compressed under high heat until the friction material cures. It follows that brake pad production (and therefore cost) is constrained by the number of moulds, the capacity of the presses and the time for the friction material to cure or harden. Considering that each car, each model and each year can have a different brake pad configuration, the process is expensive and inefficient. This requires the use of many moulds and heat presses, and is expensive, but is the usual method used to attach friction material to backing plates to form brake pads.
It would be very desirable to be able to pre-manufacture cured friction material and simply attach it to the backing plate, however, with prior art steel backing plates this cannot be done in a way that provides sufficiently strong bond between the friction material and the plate.